The present invention relates to apparatus for kindling fuel and more particularly to a housing and flue assembly for use in rapidly igniting charcoal briquettes.
Needless to say, man has been burning fuel and starting fires since the beginning of time. The patent art is indicative of this, there are a multitude of structures and apparatus to accomplish efficient kindling and rapid burning of all sorts and types of materials.
Presently modern man engages in a ritual generally referred to as the home barbeque and this practice has resulted in a huge industry involving the supply of grills and charcoal briquettes.
The outdoor preparation of food with charcoal is an experience which is widely shared and enjoyed in the United States and elsewhere. The prior art cognizant of the problems inherent in starting and maintaining an efficient charcoal fire includes many patents which attempt to expedite the task. It would be correct to state that a great majority of such fires are started by the use of a liquid igniting material. The user would form a pyramid like pile of charcoal briquettes, saturate the same with the liquid and light the saturated pile with a match or otherwise. This approach besides being dangerous, was and is inefficient while further causing unpleasant fumes and odors due to the characteristics of the liquid starters. Furthermore such liquid starters are made from petroleum by-products and are becoming increasingly more expensive.
Other approaches in the patent art involved the use of pre-packaged containers including charcoal and an igniting scheme. The theory behind such structures were that a consumer could purchase a single package, place the same on his grill and ignite the package to thereby, hopefully, ignite the charcoal contents. Such packages were and are commercially unsuccessful due to many reasons as they did not operate properly, would fail to ignite, did not contain enough charcoal, required a consumer to engage in complicated assembly procedures and so on. While such prepackaged products attempted to eliminate the use of a starter fluid, they had disadvantages and hence were not accepted by the public.
There are, of course, electric starters and other electrical devices which do not provide reliable and uniform ignition of charcoal fuel.
The problem of efficiently and reliably starting a charcoal fire without a fluid still exists.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide an improved apparatus for starting a charcoal fire without employing a starting fluid, while further providing to the consumer the capability of using as much or as little charcoal as desired, while further assuring a rapid and complete ignition of the charcoal briquettes.